Biography

Marika Leino is an academic at Oxford Brookes University. Her research focuses on Renaissance sculpture, the history of collections and the construction of status. She holds a PhD from the Warburg Institute and was formerly a Henry Moore Foundation Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the History of Art Department at the University of Oxford, as well as a lecturer at Christie’s Education, London. She has recently completed her book, Fashion, Devotion and Contemplation: The Status and Functions of Italian Renaissance Plaquettes (Peter Lang, 2012) and has published on various aspects of renaissance relief sculpture.

Project Summary

This project is an analysis of early-modern portraits which show the sitter amongst sculptures, questioning the purpose of such portraits, the choice of objects depicted, their role in shaping the sitters’ identities and the social status of such depictions. It will position these images within the wider context of the history of collecting in early-modern Italy, using a sculpture scholar’s viewpoint to create an original appreciation of both the portraits and the culture of collecting that they signify.